Four tons of possibly contaminated rainwater has leaked during a transfer of radioactive water between tank holding areas at Fukushima, the operator of disaster stricken Japan’s nuclear plant said.

A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said heavy rain
during a recent typhoon has flooded one of the tank holding
areas. It stores excess water which has been flushed over damaged
reactors to keep them cool, Reuters reports.

After tests last month showed the rainwater contained 160
becquerels per liter of radiation, a relatively low level, the
Fukushima operator decided to transfer the water to another
holding area for tanks, he said.

One of the workers found the leak during the transfer, with the
water being absorbed into the ground. TEPCO estimated the amount
of leaked water at around 4 tons, the spokesman added.

The company has been pumping hundreds of tons of water on a daily
basis over the Fukushima reactors to keep them cool, with
radioactive wastewater then being stored in underground tanks.

In August, TEPCO said at least one of those hastily built tanks
has leaked around 300 tons of radioactive water. High levels of
radiation were also found just above the ground, suggesting
widespread structural problems with the tanks.

Fukushima is likely to face more heavy rain in the next few days,
with another storm expected to hit Japan on Wednesday, the
forecast by US Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
Meanwhile, South Korean Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Yoon
Jin-sook has slammed Japan and TEPCO for earlier attempts to
downplay and cover up the facts of contaminated water leaks at
the crippled nuclear facility.

She said Tokyo’s “absurd” actions have affected the South
Korean fishermen, adding that it was the country’s duty to inform
its neighbors that it was planning to contaminate the ocean by
releasing hundreds of tons of radioactive water into it.

“We wondered if we had to protect such immoral people under
diplomatic protocols, and so we did it [by placing an import ban
on Japanese fishery products] as soon as we could,” Yoon is
cited as saying by Japanese Daily Press. “We did not know that
Japan would let the contaminated water leak. We thought ‘this
cannot be allowed while our people’s fears were growing.’”

In September, South Korea has introduced an import ban on all
fishery products from eight Japanese prefectures near Fukushima
due to possible health risks to the country’s consumers.

TEPCO had recently reversed its denials and confirmed reports
that Fukushima is leaking radioactive water into the Pacific
Ocean. The operator plans to allocate around $500 million towards
purifying the radioactive water and freezing the soil around the
station in order to cope with the leaks.

The Fukushima plant has suffered triple nuclear meltdowns and
hydrogen explosions since it was hit by an earthquake, followed
by a tsunami, in March 2011.